


train station

by spanish_sahara



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Gen, minor cw for suicidal ideation, yknow. fun shit like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spanish_sahara/pseuds/spanish_sahara
Summary: You don't have to go back.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira
Comments: 9
Kudos: 77





	train station

**Author's Note:**

> me: i think all of my p5 obsession has withered away (:  
> akechi goro, beating me senseless in a denny's parking lot: i think the fuck not

Goro wakes up in a train station. He died with shrapnel inching towards his heart and blood pooling in his mouth, but he wakes up and feels nothing but the air around him, the rough press of asphalt on his palms. He doesn’t think he’s dying anymore, but he’s tired, and cold, and every breath is a drag of metal against his chest, and fuck it, that feels pretty close.

“I thought it was rather fitting,” says Igor, or Yaldabaoth, or whoever he is today. He grins, a wide, ugly shape that accentuates the arch of his bloodshot eyes. Goro can hear the sound of metal cogs screeching in the distance. “The blue velvet is a little gauche after two or three iterations. A _crossroads_ feels much more appropriate for this occasion, don’t you think?”

“It’s a bit derivative.” Goro tries sneering, but even the mere twitch of his face leaves him exhausted in more ways than he can name. “You couldn’t have picked a more creative allegory for my afterlife? Is there a train route that takes me straight to hell?”

“And here I thought the other one was supposed to be the joker.”

“Fuck you,” Goro snaps, because there’s still some life in him after all. 

“So spirited,” the false God says. The grin grows sharper, and Goro refuses to let himself shake. There’s an ache in his back, more ghost than actual sensation, and it burns as he stands up, fists curled at his sides. “I wonder if you’ll end up leaving.”

***

Goro wakes up in a train station. His legs dangle over the dip between railways. Robin Hood and Loki hover on each side of him as if they’ve been there the whole time.

“You could be brave,” Robin Hood suggests.

Loki snorts. “We’re already dead, dipshit. What good does being brave do us?”

Goro picks at the dirt beneath his nails. He doesn’t know why he wasn’t wearing his gloves. Without them, his skin feels too exposed, too bare. Maybe that’s the point.

Robin Hood continues speaking in his deep, bellowing voice. “Coming back after everything that we did is no easy feat. There is no shame in being frightened, and it is only in recognizing our fear that we find our true resolve—”

_True resolve_ , Loki mouths.

“Yes, our _true resolve_ , the very same one that birthed each of us into existence!” Robin Hood says, with a demonstrative flourish that makes Goro embarrassed by every Saturday morning cartoon and tropey fantasy novel that had shaped Robin Hood into the creature that he was.

“Holy fuck,” Loki intones, deeply unimpressed. “Do you even hear yourself?” 

“And what suggestions do _you_ have to offer then?” Robin Hood sniffs.

“Let the kid decide for himself.” Loki turns towards Goro. It’s harder to read the expression on his face, but the extension of his hand, long and gangly, is a crude gentleness in its own right. “You feel like fucking shit up a second time around?”

Goro opens his mouth to talk, but whatever sounds leave him are swallowed by the arrival of another train. He watches Loki retract his hand back into himself, watches Robin Hood cross his arms imperiously against his chest. He feels dizzy. He doesn’t want them to go. He doesn’t want to leave, not yet.

“Eh, I guess we’ll just see it when it happens.” Loki sighs, a faint whisper of air above the cacophony of horns and metal brakes. “Until next time, kid.”

***

Goro wakes up in a train station.

“You killed my father,” Okumura says.

“You killed my mother,” Sakura says.

_I’ve killed a lot of people_ , Goro does not say. 

_I know_ , Goro does not say.

He does not say _Sorry_ , because some part of himself has forgotten how to. He closes his eyes until the next train arrives.

***

Goro wakes up in a train station. He’s seated on a bench this time, next to the worst person in the world.

“What do you want to do, Akechi-kun?” Maruki asks, as serene and sanctimonious as ever. 

"Why are you here?" Goro frowns. "I don’t even like you.”

Maruki laughs. “Fair enough. I haven’t given you much reason to.”

Goro doesn’t reply to that. He’s running out of energy to verbally eviscerate people. Death does funny things like that.

“I wish we had gotten to know one another better. I think we could’ve come to an understanding.” 

As earnestly as he can, Goro says, “I’d rather die a third time than have to spend any moment of my life speaking with you.”

Surprisingly, Maruki laughs again, the shape of his mouth careless with its warmth. Goro rakes his eyes over the dark, mussed hair, the skewed glasses, and feels his chest seize up inexplicably for the briefest of moments. He looks away.

“In any case, I admired your tenacity,” he hears Maruki continue, soft. “Not many would’ve been willing to make the choice that you did.”

Goro swallows. Keeps his eyes open. “In the end, it wasn’t my choice to make, though, was it?”

Maruki is looking at him. Light glints off his glasses. “What will you do now then?” 

Goro says nothing at that. He can already feel the rumble of a train approaching.

“Oh!” Maruki exclaims, snapping his fingers. “I heard you have a bit of a sweet tooth. Maybe we can have a more productive conversation with some cake—”

***

“This is what should have always happened,” Shido says, sneering. 

***

“You were never meant to be born,” Shido says, or something like him says. The voice could be anyone at this point. Goro would have recognized the truth of it, just the same.

***

Goro wakes up in a train station.

“You don’t have to go back,” Shiori Akechi says. His mother stands next to him, unsmiling. A cigarette hangs between her fingertips, tendrils of smoke curling in to fill the space between them. 

Goro tucks in a breath between his lungs, clenching and unclenching his hands around the edge of the bench. It’s a nervous tic he’d had, ever since he was a child—his hands would never stay still, no matter how many times he practiced. In his memories, Shiori Akechi was the opposite—a woman made of cool marble, beautiful and unmoved. Young, as she always would be.

Goro exhales. “I’m tired, Mom.”

She stays quiet for another moment, and then stubs the cigarette out on the ground. When she places her hands over his, her fingers leave ashy smudges on Goro’s knuckles. His hands still, just for that moment. 

“You don’t have to go back,” Shiori repeats. She doesn’t smile, but he can see her face soften as if she wants to. “I didn’t.”

***

Goro wakes up in a train station. He doesn’t even need to twist his head to see who’s there this time.

“Sounds like you’re going through a personal problem,” Akira says. He’s standing next to Goro, hands tucked in his jean pockets. 

“Oh, shut up,” Goro snaps, but there’s not much feeling in it. “You’re not even real.”

“Being meta won’t win you any brownie points in Purgatory,” Akira says solemnly. “Although, as a disclaimer—any shitty jokes I make are a manifestation of your own consciousness, not mine.”

“This is hell,” Goro decides. When he glances to the side, he sees Akira’s face crack into a familiar smile, small and secretive and just for him. His heart threatens to choke him again.

Neither of them speak up for the next few moments, until Goro breaks and lets the air rise and push out of his lungs.

“I was okay with dying,” Goro says. If his voice splinters on the last syllable, then Akira makes no visible reaction to the sound—even here, he is offering these small kindnesses to Goro.

“I was okay with dying,” Goro starts again, “not because it was easier. Or maybe it was. I don’t fucking know. Life was never all that great anyways. I thought death might offer a more amenable alternative to whatever I’d been enduring for the last 18 years.”

“I don’t know, life’s pretty cool,” Akira says. “I mean, it kinda sucks most of the time, hard-agree on that. You probably would know a bit more than me, yeah? But it still has some nice things.”

“Like?”

Akira begins listing things off. “Coffee, video games, beaches, Junji Ito, friends, that feeling when it’s hot as balls and you slide an ice cube down your neck.” Goro rolls his eyes, and Akira’s smile turns a touch gentler. “I haven’t watched Neo Featherman, but I’ve heard that’s pretty cool, too.”

“I kept telling you to,” Goro says, the words moving out of him on instinct.

“I know,” Akira murmurs, still gentle.

He steps a breath closer into Goro’s space. Goro wants to bridge the gap, to reach out and press his hands through that glimmer of space, real or not real. His hands shake with how fiercely the want grips him, how fiercely he wants to know, to drink coffee with Akira again, to inevitably disagree with all of Akira’s opinions on Neo Featherman, to see if Akira’s heartbeat would be just as unsteady as his own when he finally— 

“It’s not up to me,” Akira says finally. “It never has been.”

“Seriously,” Goro says. “That’s all you have to say?

_After all this time_ , another memory echoes back at him. _You really are—_

“Yes,” Akira says. The train is coming. Goro can hear it.

“I won’t be forgiven,” Goro spits out. “You think your friends are just gonna roll over and accept me into your life? You think _I’m_ gonna roll over and beg for their mercy? I don’t want to be _saved_.”

The train is coming, and Akira is standing there silently, face unreadable, just hovering out of Goro’s reach.

“I don’t have to,” Goro tries again. He’s shaking, every single stupid bit of him, and he’s too tired to pretend he isn’t. His ears are ringing. “I don’t have to go back.” 

Smoke lingers in the air. He sucks in another breath. 

“It’s not—I’m not—it’s never been _easy_.”

Akira just stares at him, and Goro stares back because he never learned how to look away, not like this. When Akira speaks, his voice shines like fine steel above the noise of everything else. 

“Of course not. But when has that ever stopped you?”

***

Goro wakes up.

***

At the train station, Akira is waiting for him on the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> man. i feel like all of my fics have just become feverish responses to p5r's true ending
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/span1shsahara)
> 
> (not as active at the moment, but feel free to say hi)


End file.
